Episode 71: Challenge accepted

This is me. I weigh, as of this picture of me, standing on a scale, 307.0 pounds. Not the heaviest that I have been, but not the lightest by a long shot. 20 years ago, I weighed half of what I do now. That half, around 150 is my goal. It's not ideal or optimal and it would make my doctor's eyebrows crease on that way that they do to know that I don't plan on my "official" body weight being within "normal BMI limitations for a so called 'healthy' person."  I don't care if I'm not stick thin or absolutely gorgeous. I care that I am healthy enough to chase around my eventual children.  So, here I am, at a friend's house accepting a month long weight loss challenge.  The winner gets a pot of gold and a leprechaun to dance around on it.  Ok, well, maybe I'm wrong about the leprechaun, but there is treasure at the end of this adventure, for she or he who loses the highest percentage of their body mass. I'm gonna try.

I post this picture for a few reasons. One, to motivate me to get my ass moving, and off the couch.  I look awful and I look fat and I have bingo curtains. I mean really!! BINGO CURTAINS!! I cannot believe I let myself get this big.  I post this picture because I am ashamed of the way that I look. I am ashamed of who and what I have become over the years through unhealthy eating, lack of movement and a great deal of depression that I haven't been willing or able to accept over the years.

Another reason I post this picture is because it is real. I am not hiding behind a gorgeous, thin avatar. I am not trying to be someone I am not and I am not trying to fool myself any longer. In my head, I am a much much thinner person, but I have to honest with myself about who I am and what I look like if I want to start to lose the weight. I can't fool myself and eat another doughnut or have another soda thinking "oh, I can work this off later."  It's not going to happen. I have to put down the carbs and be realistic about how I got here in the first place and how I am going to get myself out of it.  I packed on this weight, this fat, this body and it took me years to do it. It is going to take me a long time to get it off, but putting it on took a lot of work too.

The last reason I post this picture now is that it will be different in a month's time.  When I weigh in again in 31 days, at the end of the challenge, my friend, TechnoDude (henceforth referred to as TD) will take another picture of me and I will post that one too and I will be able to see the awesomeness shining through under a much thinner layer of fat.  I don't expect it all to go away in a month, but a month is a good start for starting new habits.

Look out world, here I come!

Love and Lollipops,

ToryLynn

Episode 10: Emotional Eating

I'm depressed today.  Recently, I have been on this huge upswing, riding high, sort of on a giggling manic, but today my mood took a dive and I feel horrible.  Part of me wants to chuck this diet and head straight for the ice cream that is in the fridge.  Part of me wants to rip open the bag of Creme d'Menthe bits that AH bought me to make cookies out of - once I had a few extra points - and devour the entire bag.  I hate being depressed, but what I hate worse is being an emotional eater.

The problem with being an emotional eater is that I may head for that bag of chocolates, or down that half gallon of ice cream and it will make me feel temporarily better with the sugar rush and the endorphins that make my blood go whee!  But in the end, I know it will make everything worse. I will end up on a sugar high, an artificial mood, for a little while, and then I will crash worse than I started.  I will look at the empty container and the guilt will creep in.  I will think "Oh! I was so awful!  Look what I did.. I am never going to get thin."  This will, of course, build on the cycle of emotional eating.  I will get even more depressed at the thought of gaining back all the weight that I just lost, at my deteriorating health. Everything I do or think will have a black cloud of doubt and gloom cast over it and I will get even more negative than I already am.

The other part of depression is the lethargy.  I do not want to move. I do not want to think. This slothlike feeling goes hand in hand with the depression and all I want to do is sit on the couch and watch sappy romantic movies and cry my eyes out. (The Notebook being the movie I cannot watch during these downswings as it will leave me a pile of sobbing goo on my couch.)

In my head, I know I just have to wait for it to pass.  I know that my mind is just playing tricks on my body and I have to wait it out, don't do anything drastic, and try to surround myself with positive thoughts and influences.  I need to accomplish something that will make me feel better about myself.  

Writing is out of the question. There is nothing more depressing than sitting down to write when I'm in one of my "moods" and finding all the poetry coming out of me, or even writing, being about heartbreak, sadness, and death.  As a former recovering Goth kid, this was the tenure of much of my teen angst writing.  I could work on my novel, but my mood will inevitably shift to that of my characters and they may do something drastic.  I'm all for editing, but really often, the characters run the story and I just write down what they tell me to do.  Right now, they're telling me to go eat all the ice cream in the fridge and write them into torrid love affairs that will all end badly.  Not an option.

Instead, I think I will go clean something.  Empty the dishwasher, clean up around my desk (which has the detritus of probably 3 weeks of lack of cleaning surrounding it), maybe even get up the nerve to finally sort out and clean off my dinner table... but I wouldn't hold my breath about that.  

Altogether, writing this made me smile a little bit, which is good and I can feel my spirits picking up.  I had better go clean something while I still have the energy.

Thanks for reading!  (and to my followers! I have three now! How awesome is that!)  I hope you have a lovely everything.

-ToryLynn